Cast your votes for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world. Official voting ends on Friday, April 6, and the poll winner will be included in the TIME 100 issue. The complete TIME 100 list will be chosen by our editors and revealed on TIME.com on Tuesday, April 17.

Note well the language: “influential”.

It does NOT say “whom you like” or “whom you agree with”.

It says “influential”.

Given what is going on in the USA right now, Timothy Card. Dolan, as President of the USCCB engagedon our behalf in a battle with the White House over the religious liberty and civil rights of all Americans… and making headway… is nothing if not “influential”.

I would appreciate it if you would remember me in your prayers. I am searching for a new job, as my current employers are only giving me 22-26 hours a week. As I drive 60 miles round trip every day, this is just barely paying for the gas at the current gas prices. Thank you all!

Friday, March 23, 2012

The
following excerpts are from the cnsnews.com article U.S. Silent on
Top Saudi Cleric’s Call to ‘Destroy Churches’ by Patrick
Goodenough:

Ten
days after Saudi Arabia’s foremost religious leader called for a
demolition of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula – in line with
a purported injunction by Mohammed – the U.S. government and other
allies of the kingdom have yet to react.

Major
media outlets also have largely ignored the incident; a Nexis search
finds reporting on the issue has been restricted to blogs and opinion
columns, including a Washington Times editorialon
March 16.

On
March 12, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh was quoted in
Arabic media reports as telling a visiting Kuwaiti delegation that it
was “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.”

Thursday, March 22, 2012

“Last week, President Barack Obama took the unusual step of commenting on a state ballot initiative,” Bishops Michael Burbidge of Raleigh and Peter Jugis of Charlotte said in response. “His stated opposition to the referendum on the marriage amendment in North Carolina is a grave disappointment, as it is reported to be the first time that the President has entered into this issue on the state level, further escalating the increasing confusion on the part of some in our society to the very nature of marriage itself … While we are respectful of the Office of the President, we strongly disagree with [his] assessment.”

CNSNews.com has an article
entitled “Mothers/Lawyers Launch Petition Against Obamacare
Contraceptive Mandate – 20,000 Signatures So Far”. Below are
some excerpts from that article (emphases are mine):

Two
female law experts have launched a petition that they say answers
liberal members
of Congress who claim women do not have a voice in the debate
over the Obamacare mandate for contraceptive coverage and whether it
infringes on religious liberty.“Where
are the Women? Here We Are”is
the headline at the Web site and petition campaign launched in
February by Helen Alvare, associate law professor at George Mason
University, and Kim Daniels, former counsel for the religious
liberty advocacy group, Thomas More Law Center. So far, more
than 20,000 women have signed the petition,
which is also posted
on Facebook.Alvare
told CNSNews.com that the
Catholic Church’s stand against the Obama administration has given
voice to Americans, including a growing number of women who agree
with the church,
even if some people have tried to deny that such an opposite opinion
on the matter exists.“I’m
telling you that it does,”
Alvare said. “It’s robust
and we’re here.”

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Decrying the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate as “a mandate to act against our teachings” and “a violation of personal civil rights,” the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement calling upon “the Catholic faithful, and all people of faith, throughout our country to join us in prayer and penance for our leaders and for the complete protection of our First Freedom--religious liberty.”

we wish to clarify what this debate is—and is not—about. This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive, even when it is not provided by the Church's hand and with the Church's funds. This is not about the religious freedom of Catholics only, but also of those who recognize that their cherished beliefs may be next on the block. This is not about the Bishops' somehow "banning contraception," when the US Supreme Court took that issue off the table two generations ago. Indeed, this is not about the Church wanting to force anybody to do anything; it is instead about the federal government forcing the Church—consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions—to act against Church teachings. This is not a matter of opposition to universal health care, which has been a concern of the Bishops' Conference since 1919, virtually at its founding. This is not a fight we want or asked for, but one forced upon us by government on its own timing. Finally, this is not a Republican or Democratic, a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American issue.

Third in a series of videos by the Bishops of North Carolina explaining the position of the Catholic Church in support FOR the marriage amendment. Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte, NC explains additional Church Teaching about the institution of marriage. Both Bishop Jugis and Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Raleigh urge all North Carolina residents to vote FOR marriage on May 8, 2012.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Arkes mentions another potentially interesting fact about the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act: it was formally introduced by then-Senator Rick Santorum. If Santorum were to become the Republican candidate for the presidency, he would be challenging the only prominent Democrat who opposed the legislation.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Do you recall a 1997 movie called "Wag the Dog"? The Internet Movie Database describes it as:

"Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to "fabricate" a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal."

According to UsingEnglish.com the expression "wag the dog" is an idiom (which is a fixed expression with a nonliteral meaning) defined as:

To 'wag the dog' means to purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance. By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.

Why am I bring this movie up? Because that is exactly what is happening right before our eyes with the HHS Mandate on contraception.

The Obama administration, with a complicit main stream media, complicit liberal talk shows, and with the frantic caterwauling of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Sandra Fluke, Planned Parenthood, and the rest of that crowd that shares an IQ, has deemed the attack on the First Amendment to actually be a "war against women" and their "right" to "free" contraception.

They are counting on the Obama base, and the pro-death crowd (you can call them pro-choice if you want to, I call them what they are) not paying attention to what is actually going on, which is a blatant attack on religious freedom and conscience. They are counting on them to be convinced of the fallacious idea that there is an underlying attack on women, and that they want women to suffer and to die.

That my friends, is just a truck load of bull hockey.

When President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued the contraception mandate, they blatantly issued an "in your face" attack on the United States Constitution, and in particular, an attack on the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

With the issuance of the HHS Mandate, the Obama administration has once again thumbed it's nose at the United States Constitution, and is in fact prohibiting the free exercise of the religious beliefs and tenets of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church my friends, is not just a large, religious institution headquartered in Rome. The Catholic Church is me, you, your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, your co-workers, your local parish, a local high school, the hospital across town, countless universities and colleges, the food kitchen, the homeless shelter, the medical clinic, the adoption agency and more.

Yes, the Church encompasses far more than people realize, and what they fail to realize is, that with forcing this mandate upon the Catholic Church, many if not all of those services provided by the Church will be gone, because the Church will be forced to end those services before we will deny our religious conscience.

To demand that the Catholic Church deny it's religious conscience is to demand that the Catholic Church deny Christ. To demand that we deny Our Lord and Our Savior is something that will never happen to satisfy any mandate from President Obama or any other government official.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

From Catholic Culture there is an article well worth reading, "Are Babies Not Persons? Seeing Patterns" by Dr. Jeff Mirus. The following excerpts are from that article:

A recent article in The Journal of Medical Ethics argued that infanticide is morally equivalent to abortion, and therefore perfectly justifiable. This might have been surprising, except that a month earlier the same journal had published an article arguing that it is morally permissible for doctors to kill patients if their organs might be used for effective transplants in others. So let us recognize the pattern and realize that The Journal of Medical Ethics has an agenda.

We must first acknowledge the human capacity to discern the nature of things before we can see the folly of the opinion of these authors in The Journal of Medical Ethics. They claim that, while a human being is present from the moment of conception until natural death, only a person has a right to life, and a person cannot be said to exist until a human being develops to the point of reflecting on the worth of his own life. Only then does it become an injury to have life taken away.